#StrategyBites – Business News for week ending 15th October 2016

Business Indices

Market

Start of Week

End of Week

Change

%age

FTSE100

7,044.39

7,013.55

30.84

-0.438%

DJIA

18,240.49

18,138.38

-102.11

-0.560%

£->€

1.1106

1.1105

-0.0001

-0.009%

£->$

1.2436

1.2186

-0.0250

-2.010%

The Brexit fall out continues to depress Sterling, to, at one point, a 138 year low. The week saw Bank of England Governor Mark Carney indicate that he expects inflation to rise, and that was highlighted by Unilever seeking to increase its prices (and ex Unilever boss Dave Lewis, who now runs Tesco, taking a stand against that), Petrol and Diesel price rises started showing through as stocks bought pre-June23rd are running out. Another 4-5p per litre rise in Fuel costs can be expected in the next 2 to 3 weeks.Lloyds Bank.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

Sales of Samsung’s new flagship large format phone – The Note 7 were hot, really hot. So hot that for some phones the Batteries were burning and so Samsung recalled the phone and issue a new version. Some of those burst into flames too. The rumours are that they accelerated the launch of the phone to get to market ahead of the iPhone 7 and so compromised some aspects of quality control. Having made a mistake they compounded it by announcing it had been fixed when it had not.

The lessons here are that being first to market may not be the best thing to be if you compromise quality, and if you do mess up then getting the right answer slowly is bound to better than rushing to a quick answer that proves to be wrong.

In this case Samsung have decided to withdraw the product completely. The immediate costs are estimated at $4.4Bn, and to the Brand? Significantly more. (Source: Telegraph).

Doctors Receptionists

Doctors receptionists are not always hired for their customer service skills as the job is as much administrative as it is customer facing. Yet a recent survey shows what happens when you ignore the needs of customers and leave staff who are not properly trained asking questions which others find inapproriate for the role. The business lesson? Don’t give your staff responsibilities for which their experience is insufficient. (Source: BBC)

Foolish moment of the Week:

After a Gorilla escaped into staff areas at London Zoo, the BBC, showed footage of the Gorilla whilst talking about SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon. Whoops.

Preparing for the Future You Don’t Yet Know

Stephen Harvard Davis and I are running a workshop on January 19th 2017 – More details are here…